Computing networks can include multiple network devices such as routers, switches, hubs, servers, desktop PCs, laptops, and workstations, and peripheral devices, e.g., printers, facsimile devices, and scanners, networked together across a local area network (LAN) and/or a wide area network (WAN).
Monitoring, configuring, and troubleshooting the various network devices can become a daily task as network devices are added and the size of the network increases.
In previous approaches various aspects of a network and/or a network device would be monitored using whatever pre-arranged lists of network information were included within a given drop down menu to a user interface of a given network device. Various network tasks cause a user to access the user interface of a particular network device or network devices and to attempt to navigate between such pre-arranged lists of network information spread among multiple drop down menus and associated with numerous tabs. For example, a user may have access to a user interface and then have to navigate between the multiple pre-arranged lists of network information spread among multiple drop down menus and associated with numerous tabs to perform tasks such as adding a network device to the network, troubleshooting for an error and/or failure occurrence, troubleshooting less than optimal performance, and/or re-configuring a network device, etc.
With numerous tabs, e.g., forty (40) or more, presentable to a user interface, many different tabs would potentially have to be accessed to locate network information within various pre-arranged lists when performing just one particular task. In order to perform a second, e.g., different task, the user would once again have to navigate through many different tabs to locate other network information within among various pre-arranged lists as related to the second task. As network size increases, so too does the complexity of locating network information within the pre-arranged lists spread among multiple drop down menus and associated with numerous tabs.